Agenda - Council - 02/08/2021 - Laserfiche WebLink

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relinquished, in the interest of helping defendants deal with addiction. Response: The League of Minnesota Cities supports the efforts of drug courts to address substance abuse and reduce crime. The League supports funding for additional drug courts. SD-51. Drug Paraphernalia Issue: Cities throughout the state struggle with local businesses selling items primarily designed to enable illegal drug use. Current state law only prohibits use, possession, delivery, and advertisements of drug paraphernalia. The law inadequately defines the term "drug paraphernalia," and leaves cities to pass more effective ordinances "prohibiting or otherwise regulating the manufacture, delivery, possession, or advertisement of drug paraphernalia." Many cities have adopted their own ordinances to regulate drug paraphernalia, including specifically prohibiting sales. But for a variety of reasons, business owners routinely challenge these ordinances as unconstitutional and then successfully invoke virulent public outcry on that basis. This experience along with costly court challenges discourages other cities from taking similar steps to curb illegal drug activity, and leaves most cities only able to enforce an inadequate state law. Most states immediately around Minnesota define "drug paraphernalia" in a detailed way based on a 1979 model federal law designed to avoid constitutional issues. Minnesota does not. Federal law and the law of half the states immediately around Minnesota explicitly ban sales of drug paraphernalia, but Minnesota does not. The current state of the law arguably makes drug paraphernalia easier to obtain in Minnesota 47 than in the states immediately surrounding it. Response: The League of Minnesota Cities supports strengthening the current statutory prohibition on drug paraphernalia, including improving the statutory definition of "drug paraphernalia" and explicitly prohibiting sales. SD-52. Regulation of Massage Therapists Issue: The state does not currently license nor register massage therapists. Minn. Stat. ch. 146A is the Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practices Act which identifies prohibited provider conduct and authorizes the Minnesota Department of Health to take disciplinary action against noncompliant providers who are not registered or licensed by a health -related licensing board. The office has authority to respond to allegations of prohibited behavior through an investigatory process but this function is triggered mainly by consumer complaints and there is no requirement that the office take any action. Additionally, resources for these purposes have been severely limited. In absence of any required statewide standards or regulation, several cities have entered the traditional state domain of health-care licensure by enacting ordinances that require all massage therapists to obtain a local professional license and many cities have also required bricks and mortar establishments to obtain a business license. These ordinances help local law enforcement officers to differentiate between legitimate providers and businesses engaged in sex trafficking and prostitution as well as provide for health and sanitation standards.